FEATURED TALES
17
But
It Wasn't The Moon
On a balmy Kentucky summer
evening in 1980, my mother had to head to town to get my father some medicine.
She decided to take me and my brother along even though it was nearing ten at
night because she wanted my dad to get some sleep. Since we lived in a rural
area of Fayette County, going to town–especially this late at night–was an
adventure for me and my brother. We drove to town, picked up my dad’s
medicine, and mom even stopped at Burger King to get me and my brother a small
order of french fries! On the way home, as we sat in the back of the dark
hatchback, happily eating our late-night treat, we happened upon something
that none of us have ever been able to explain, and it’s something I’ve never
forgotten.
Our little car putted along the
narrow country road, through a thicket of overhanging trees, past the old,
red-brick Baptist Church, and into the sharp curve on Jack’s Creek Rd. This
curve was in a clearing and always offered heart-stopping views of amazing
sunsets, star-studded night skies, and magnificent lightning storms. On this
night, however, it offered a perfectly clear view of the round, bright orange
full moon.
My mom pointed at the sky and
said, “Wow, look at that beautiful moon tonight, kids!”
It was such an awesome sight that
my mother pulled off to the side of the road so we could get a good long look
at it. This was the brightest and strangest color moon I’d ever seen, and all
three of us were quiet as we gazed out our open car windows. I guess you could
say the three of us were moon struck, because we were hypnotized by the sight
before us. This neon orange moon began to grow, staying perfectly circular,
but filling the sky in front of us. There was no sound at all, no certain
smells other then the deep fried potatoes we held in our little hands. The
atmosphere around us began to get heavy, and as the moon would grow bigger
with each blink of our eyes, fear slowly began to overtake curiosity. For a
moment, I was able to tear my gaze from this huge orange moon, and look over
to the left. There, in that part of the night sky, was the real moon–in
its first quarter, white, and the size it should be. My head jerked back to
the right, once again focusing on the round orange object above, and I
realized we were not looking at something normal. “That’s not the moon!” I
shouted. “Look! The moon is over there!”
My mom and brother looked in the
direction I was pointing and I could see my mother’s shoulders tense. Then she
looked back to the right, and her hands gripped the steering wheel tighter as
she stared at the ball of light to the right–it had grown in size to where it
almost took up that entire area of sky. It was absolutely huge, filling like a
gigantic balloon, blocking out an area of sky that was impossible to do. That
slight fear turned to real terror and my mother slammed the car into drive and
we sped away as fast as the little car could take us. As we pulled away, my
brother and I turned to look at the object out of the back window.
“Don’t look at it!” my mother
cried, her voice shaking.
“Is it another moon, Momma?” my
little brother asked.
She nervously took a drag off her
cigarette, exhaled and said, “We’ve only got one moon.” She paused for just a
moment then continued. “I don’t know what that is.”
We made it home safely, and sat
in the family room chatting and watching the news to see if there had been any
odd reports to confirm what we’d seen, but nothing was mentioned. We all
became quiet, pondering the evening’s events for a while, and then mom made us
go to bed.
Through the years, my mom and I
have only spoken of this a few times, and my brother was so young that he
either doesn’t remember much of it, or he’s tried to block it out of his mind.
To this day we have no idea what that orange ball in the sky was that night,
and we haven’t seen anything like it since. It will forever be a mystery to
us, and when I’m out late at night, my eyes can’t help but search the skies
for that strange, neon orange object that haunts my memories.
-AJ
Caywood.